Commodores Ramblings
With no editor of Up the Creek at the moment, I thought I would put out a short “News letter.”
AGM
The year kicked off with a well-attended AGM. A few members were still a bit concerned about gathering in a confined space so we set up a Zoom meeting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t too successful. I should have realised that trying to run the meeting in the hall and on the laptop at the same time was a little optimistic. Unfortunately, somehow background noise was interrupting the meeting. In my attempt to mute the noise out, I managed to mute the laptop, so those on the call couldn’t hear what was going on. I apologise to those of you on the call watching the meeting with no sound.
We welcomed John Williams and Michael Hegarty to the Committee at the AGM. John has put himself forward to assist the Yardmaster with lifts etc, and Michael is keen to kick off some social events. Michael has already organised a Lift In supper at the Tree Tunns on the 29th April. I believe spaces are going quickly, if you haven’t booked spaces and would like to, contact Michael on m.hegarty.240@gmail.com to check availability.
New Members
With the loss of a number of members this year we have been able to open up a few places to new members, so you may see a few new faces about. I would like to welcome Chris, Perry, Ricky, Matt, Nigel, Nicholas, Trevor and Neil. We have another 3 to see.
This Season
With Spring approaching and some boats already launched, I hope everyone still ashore is making progress with any jobs on their boats. It is such a relief this year to have no restrictions on our activities after 2 horrible years. Hopefully we can all get out on the water a bit more.
Graham Osborne has produced a calendar of events on the water, so hopefully we can get some races going again. Before Covid came along we were trying to find a way for those interested in the racing communicating between themselves, as we had a number of occasions where only one boat would turn out. It seems lack of communication and uncertainty if anyone else would turn up was keeping people away. At the time, I tried setting up a forwarding email address, by just sending a single email would send to a group of members. This wasn’t very successful, possibly as it was a little confusing to sign up for, and only a few signed up. I have set up a Forum plugin (software) on the website that will allow members to discuss races in an open forum. To get notifications of new posts, if you are interested you will need to subscribe to the forum. After initially setting this up for racing I have also added Cruises/Rallies, Dinghy Cruises, Fishing, General Chat and Technical Chat. It is easy for me to add other subjects. If you can think of anything else that may be of use let me know. The forums are currently publicly visible and require login to comment. Following a discussion with a member last week, I will probably change them to Private that will require login to see the content. The Forums can be accessed from the Top Menu Bar.
Internet Privacy
As mentioned above a member noticed that an internet search of his name showed him as a member of LHYC and details of comments he had made on a recent post. I have changed some Privacy settings and hidden post comments so they are only visible to logged in members. The login software creates Profiles for all members. I don’t appear to be able to hide the profile for existing members. If you wish to hide your Profile, once logged in, click on “My Account” and your account details will appear. On the left you will see a Padlock icon and “Privacy.” Click there and you will see your Privacy options, who can see your profile, and whether it is indexed by search engines. There are also options to request to see and delete any personal information held on the website. This just amounts to your name appearing against posts you have created or commented on. Whilst I could make all posts private, this would mean that every time a notification email was sent out, everyone would need to login to read it.
The personal information collected from your membership form is tucked away in a database, and not accessible to search engines. Whilst logged in members can read the Contact list, it is built each time it is viewed by logged in members and only displays the details of members that have given permission to share their contact details with other members. Providing no one shares the contact list it is secure to members only.
Bottled Gas
I have been asked to add a note about bottled gas. It is something I have been aware of since last summer and as I was aware I guess I assumed others would also know. There has been a shortage of bottled gas for some time. The biggest supplier Calor have had distribution problems with a shortage of drivers, particularly in the SE. More recently I read that the 4.5Kg dumpy bottles are pretty much unobtainable. I read on a boating forum that someone had been informed that Calor, with their distribution problems were concentrating on their more popular sizes and not reconditioning or distributing the small 4.5Kg bottles. I understand one or two members have tried to buy gas ready for the season and had no luck finding any. During last summer Calor dealers that had gas were not supplying new customers and would only replace an empty. I do not know what the situation is with Camping Gaz that some of us are forced to use due to the size of our gas lockers.
If you do find gas, be prepared for a shock. I bought a 15Kg Calor Butane and a 13Kg Propane and it cost me £95.
Dinghy launching
We have had various requests for something to assist in pulling dinghies up the slip. Various ideas have been suggested, including electric winches, a running loop of rope the attach to, but all so far have been discounted on safety, security or other reasons. I have just acquired a mobility scooter and I am currently updating it to tow a launching trolley. We haven’t tried it yet, but it seems to have plenty of power. Whether it will have enough grip to pull a dinghy up the slip remains to be seen. If it is successful, please ensure the tyres are inflated and do not use it if a tyre is flat. The small tyres will easily be destroyed as we had with inflatable tyres on the launch trollies. One other thing please do not be tempted to drive it into the water to attempt to float a dinghy on or off the trolley, the electric drive motor is mounted just above the axle.
Up the Creek Editor
As I mentioned at the start, we still have a vacancy for a new UTC editor. If you are interested let me know. It could be a traditional publication as we have enjoyed up to now or a simple web-based publication like this.
In the mean time, if you have any interesting stories or articles you would like published, send it to me and I will publish it.
Finally, hopefully we will have some good weather and get some great sailing, motoring, fishing, paddling or what ever else you do on the water.